Returned-unread-or-partially-unread, Part II:

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. One of my favorite books--I'd checked out a fairly recent audiobook version, read by an array of modern fiction writers, most of whom I've never heard of (Ron Hansen, Richard Ford, James McBride, A. Manette Ansay, Daniel Menaker, Donna Tartt, Daniel Halpern, David Ebershoff, Elizabeth Berg, Philip Caputo, Jonathan Lethem, Susan Minot, Dennis Lehane, Paul Auster, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Ruchard Russo, Katherine Mosby, Pete Hamill, Amy Bloom, Benjamin Cheever, Russell Banks, Tobias Wolff, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Elizabeth Strout and Michael Cunningham).

Connections, by James Burke. Another audiobook, though I also returned Connections and Connections 2 videos. I just don't think I'm an audiobook kinda guy, especially when the only place I have a cassette player is my car. And the videos just make me pine for digital cable. I've also got Burke's Circles. I am a big James Burke fan. Pity about the KnowledgeWeb.

Dumbing Us Down, by John Taylor Gatto. I'm pretty into his work, and I'll read this someday. A patron put in a request for it, though, leading me to turn it in. (I still have his An Underground History of American Education, well on its way to being free online.)

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, by David Kushner. It's about id Software's John Carmack and John Romero, who were briefly superstars of video game design, presuming that's not an oxymoron. I'm no fan of first-person shooters myself. That's just gossip, though.

Also, I just finished Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, which I loved, despite the hardback being bound very cheaply, and Eric Schlosser's Reefer Madness, which I'd recommend reading but not buying. It's not as cohesive as Fast-Food Nation, and the three long sections (about marijuana, migrant workers and the pornography industry) seem almost like expanded magazine pieces (I'm pretty sure at least one is). Schlosser, says the jacket, is working on a book about the prison industry. I'm excited.  ¶ 6:48 PM